The present disclosure relates generally to drilling operations and more particularly to ranging systems and methods used during drilling operations.
In directional drilling operations, it may be desirable to monitor the direction of the bottom hole assembly (BHA) as it drills through a formation and/or the locations of objects, structures, and/or other formation attributes known in the art. This is particularly true in the drilling of ultra deep wellbores, offshore drilling operations, and/or a variety of other drilling operations known in the art. Conventionally, ranging systems have been provided that utilize ranging devices on a wireline. In one conventional ranging method, drilling operations are stopped, the wireline is introduced to the wellbore being drilled, the ranging devices are activated, the wireline is removed from the wellbore, and drilling operations are then restarted. Such conventional methods are time consuming, as they require the drilling operations to be stopped each time ranging operations are required. In another example, the wireline may be positioned in a first wellbore and the ranging devices used to guide the BHA in the drilling of a second wellbore. However, in many situations such as, for example, ultra deep drilling operations, it may not be practical to drill the first wellbore for the wireline. In other situations, the first wellbore may not be accessible to the wireline.
Therefore, what is needed is an improved ranging system and method for drilling operations.